


Journeys End

by Calais_Reno



Series: Fin de Siècle [14]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Smut, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Reichenbach, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22402039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Journeys end in lovers meeting. A bit of smut. We all deserve it.This is part of a Victorian AU where Reichenbach happened, but Moran won and carried on what Moriarty had begun. At this point, Watson has served two years in prison for gross indecency and Holmes, presumed dead for nearly eight years, has returned to him.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Fin de Siècle [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551937
Comments: 12
Kudos: 74





	Journeys End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teddy (I_am_lampy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_lampy/gifts).



> A minor amount of not very explicit sex late in the chapter.

I’d spent nearly eight years in Europe, working in fields and factories under various names. My fall would be old news now, I thought, and I might slip back into England using an alias. I knew the political climate was worse, but I was homesick, tired of being on the run, and unwilling to wait longer.

That was my reasoning when I hopped aboard a cargo ship in Calais, employed as a crewman.

When the ship docked at Dover, I was ill. My body, weakened by years of labor and poverty wages, had little immunity once exposed to a new group of germs. The congestion built in my lungs, the ague shook my bones. By the time I’d made my way to London, partly on foot, partly thanks to the brief, cautious kindness of strangers, I was feverish, nearly delirious.

I might have written to someone who could have helped me make the crossing, but I wasn’t sure who I could trust. I thought of Thomas Quick, my brother’s friend, but I had no way of knowing if he’d received the book I’d sent to Watson, or even if he was alive. Not wishing to endanger him, I hadn’t communicated directly with him or given him a return address. Besides, once I made up my mind to work my way to the Channel, there was no address I could give him. I’d been as secret as I could, fearing for my friends. If word of my return had gotten out, Moran would have gone after Watson again. His thugs might have met me at the dock, killed me before my love ever knew I was alive.

I woke in an alley, wet and chilled to the bone. It was a mistake, I realised, to come back like this. I might have died a nameless labourer in the fields of France as easily as in the alleys of London. I closed my eyes and accepted that I’d been defeated by invisible microbes. Though I was finally back in London, just miles away from him, I would never seen John Watson again.

But voices spoke, and I was lifted, carried to a place that was warmer and drier. Perhaps my luck hadn’t run out yet.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was cold, but someone had covered me with coarse blankets. I was sitting up in a vehicle, supported by two people. We were moving.A cab, perhaps. I surmised that I’d been kidnapped.

Startling, I began to flail at the people sitting on either side of me. “No… help…” My voice didn’t appear to be working. This did not surprise me, for my throat felt like it was on fire.

“Easy, Mr Holmes,” one of my companions said. He had a face that was almost familiar. “We’re taking you to the Doctor.”

He knew my name, which surprised me, considering how I must look with long hair, a beard, and tattered clothing. The way he said _Doctor_ made me think he meant Watson. In response, I began to cry.

I don’t remember the rest of the journey.

The third time I awoke, I was lying feverish in a bed, my mouth dry, feeling as if I’d been flayed alive. I could smell antiseptic and bleach. A hospital, I assumed.

In my delirium, I imagined that it was John whose hand held mine. “Watson,” I whispered. I’d imagined him so many times, stroking my forehead and feeling my pulse with his small, capable hands, those lovely dark eyes regarding me with concern and love. Had I been shot? I had been wandering in a dark wood, I thought, trying to find my way home. Moran had laughed. _The game continues, Mr Holmes. Do not die, and do not come back to life._

That was my mistake. I had tried to come back. _Oh, John, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to die—_

A voice. “Salicin. It’s an anti-pyretic. Go find some.”

There was movement, and then I felt a cool hand on my forehead. I opened my eyes. _John._

“Influenza,” he said. “He needs… he needs… _Oh, please…_ ” He began to sob.

I tried to reach for him, but was wracked with coughing. _Well, maybe I’m not quite dead yet._

Weeping, he took my face in his hands. “Oh, my dear. My darling boy.”

“John.” I relaxed and drifted back into sleep.

I might have slept for hours. When I awoke, it was light. The fever had broken, leaving me limp.

“Holmes, look at me.”

I opened my eyes and gratefully recognised the face that leaned over me.

My lover was thinner than I’d ever seen him, even when he’d just come back from Afghanistan, _thin as a lath and brown as a nut_. The eyes that studied me were weary, the cropped hair more grey than blond. He wore wire-framed spectacles now, and the impressive moustache he used to flaunt was gone. _Older, but not yet an old man_. He would be forty-six. He looked thinned out, body and soul, as if he’d been stretched over too many circumstances.

I kept my eyes on the beloved face. _He will be angry_ , I remembered.

“John,” I whispered. “Forgive me.”

His hand stroked my hair. “I already have.” He smiled. “How do you feel?”

“How did I come here?” Simply asking the question exhausted me. ”Where am I?” I heard a nurse pushing a cart several beds over.

Watson’s eyes went to the nurse for a moment, then back to me. He spoke softly. “You’re at Barts. Simon Thomas and Bill Wiggins found you in the docklands. They brought you here, burning up with fever and ranting in a delirium. That was two days ago. You’re a bit cooler this morning, but you’ll need to stay in bed today. Unfortunately, I must start my shift if I’m to keep my job.”

“You’re working here?”

He pulled his stethoscope out of his pocket and sat on the edge of the bed. “Sit up a bit. Let me hear you breathe.” His face was intent as he pressed the bell of the instrument to my chest, his arm resting gently against my back. He was so close that I could smell him— the sweat in his clothing, imbued with smoke from a coal fire, ship’s tobacco, disinfectant. It was a comforting smell, one I remembered well, with a few added notes. I wanted to reach up and envelop him in my arms, but I was weak, and not yet sure how that would be received.

“In… out… in… out…” he prompted me. “Sit up straight now.” He helped me into an upright position, repeated his examination with the stethoscope on my back. When I’d given a few deep breaths, he nodded. “You’re out of the woods. Hasn’t turned into pneumonia. Common respiratory infection, combined with exhaustion.” He put the stethoscope back into his pocket. “Simon has claimed you as a cousin. Your name is William Scott, and you’ve just come back from an extended tour on the continent. He’ll take you home when you’re strong enough to leave here.”

“Where are you living?”

I was having trouble reading his face. I was not fool enough to believe that I could just walk back into his life after nearly eight years, but my feelings were unchanged. Impatiently, I wanted reassurance, but my exile, his time in prison— these things stood between us. He was guarded, I could see.

I thought I understood his caution. We were in a hospital ward where anyone might see us together.

“You shouldn’t have sent me back.” His expression hovered somewhere between fondness and regret. “When I realised that there was no ailing English lady…” He sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there. No point in rehashing things that are over and done. I gave up being angry at you a long time ago. In times like these, a grudge is an expensive indulgence. I’m a poor man.”

“We’re both poor.” I shook my head, rueful. “I’m sorry, Watson.”

“What happened is not your fault, Holmes. You’ve clearly suffered as well.” He turned his head, looking away. “I’m just… glad to have you back.” I saw a tear fall on his collar.

I took his hand in mine carefully, using the blanket as a cover.

“I wanted to see you, but I was afraid I might put you in danger. Did you get the books I sent you?”

He laughed softly. “I thought… I didn’t realise it until the Dante arrived. That was so… _you._ Just the way you’d send me a message: _I’m in Hell right now, but on my way out._ Then, I thought it couldn’t be true. There were so many times when I hoped… God, I prayed. I asked you not to be dead. It seemed too much to hope for. Foolish, wishful thinking. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted it to be true, for you to be alive. You don’t know how many times I’ve gone over those hours at Reichenbach, wondering what I could have done differently, reasoning out what might have happened. I had fantasies of you escaping, bringing down Moriarty’s organisation, returning to London in triumph. Obviously that couldn’t have happened, but… I thought I might go mad, imagining... And now— I keep thinking this is a dream or an hallucination…” Removing his spectacles, he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. His lips trembled.

“John,” I said. “I don’t expect anything from you. I just needed to see your face again, to ask your forgiveness.”

He nodded, but didn’t meet my eyes. “You have it, as I said. Circumstances have changed, but my heart has not. I do not blame you.” He sighed and squeezed my hand. “I have to go.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Where do you live?”

“Here, Holmes. Stamford got me a job here, at Barts. Not as a doctor.” He smiled bitterly. “I’m the caretaker. I mop the floors, empty the bins, fix whatever breaks. There’s an apartment in the basement, just a couple rooms. The wage isn’t much, but I don’t have to pay rent, and I get two meals a day…” He closed his eyes and I saw more tears squeezing out between his lids. Sighing, he pressed his lips together. “I have to go now or I’ll be late.”

“We’ll talk later, then. I’ll tell you about all the jobs I’ve had.”

“I’d like that.” His smile was crooked. “I want to know everything that’s happened to you.”

After he left, I thought about what I’d observed. I remembered the John Watson I’d left at Reichenbach, and had spent years recalling every precious detail of him. This John Watson was a different man. I needed to think about how he’d changed.

For a man with imperfectly healed injuries, the treadmill had clearly been a hardship. For a man used to conversation and companionship, the isolation and silence must have been an even greater punishment. Physically, he had shrunk from a vigorous, muscular man into one who was thin, nearly gaunt, lacking the bluff courage and humour that had always been part of his character. He did not seem cowed, I thought. Watson could never be a coward, but he seemed more cautious now, keeping his head down as if he knew enemies were watching, ready to catch him out.

I slept some more, lost track of time. It was night, then day again. Then it was a week, and I was feeling almost human once more. The ward doctor stopped by and said I was doing much better.

“Your lungs are clear, and your fever is gone,” he said. “We’ll keep you here for another day just to be sure, but if you continue to improve over the next twenty-four hours, you can go home, Mr Scott.”

His name was Anstruther, I noted. We’d never met, but I knew who he was, Watson’s former colleague in practice. “Thank you, doctor. I feel much better.”

He nodded and glanced towards the door, where I could see Watson standing with his mop. “I assume you will see your own doctor soon. It would be good to have your lungs checked in a week or so. There’s a lot of influenza going around now, and in your weakened condition, you will be susceptible.”

“I’ll be sure to have my doctor examine me.”

I was hoping for a rather thorough examination from Dr Watson, but he seemed skittish about spending much time with me. I often saw him at the door, or he would find an excuse to come into the ward to empty the bins or check something. He did not linger or talk to me unless the ward was empty. Maybe he was just reassuring himself that I was really alive, really here. I desperately wanted to have a conversation with him, but it would have to wait until I was released. Then perhaps we could find a way to meet more privately.

The following day Simon came to get me. Watson bid me goodbye rather formally and returned to his work.

The Thomas family were happy to receive me and immediately put me at ease. I’d decided to keep the beard I’d grown over the last weeks, though I did trim it to look less derelict, and Simon had found me clothes that would let me pass for a labourer rather than the vagabond I’d come in as.

Assuming identities was a talent of mine; at one time I’d owned a closet full of disguises with which I’d regularly fooled Watson. Now my deception was for greater stakes; I was playing for my own survival and Watson’s. I’d had enemies, most of whom were now either in prison or dead, but one never really knew who might see an opportunity to make a bit of scratch by turning in a fugitive. I would have to be cautious.

“Nobody here will peach on you, Mr Holmes,” Simon said, grinning at me. “I should say, Mr Scott.”

“I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

“It’s no trouble,” Mrs Thomas said, setting a cup of tea in my hands. “We’re just happy to have you here.”

“You’ll soon get the lay of the land, know who to trust,” Simon added. “The coppers on the beat are mostly unhappy about Moran’s doings. All these changes in the law make more work for them, and create hostility in the neighbourhoods. They ignore whatever they can, only get tough when the politicians start whinging.”

“What do the politicians whinge about?”

“Too many men out of work, hanging about the streets. Beggars. Men asking for day work. Too many complaints from the electorate and they’ve got to start cleaning up the streets, hauling these down-and-outers off to the workhouse.”

“They’re arresting people for being out of work?”

“Not arresting, per se, but it amounts to the same thing. A few of my boys have been taken. Even though they were doing day labour, it wasn’t regular enough so they were picked up and shipped off. The workhouses are booming these days.”

“They’ve amended the Poor Law, then?”

“Mr Lestrade— Mr Joseph Lestrade, that is— he calls it an _interpretation._ Instead of changing the law, they just enforce the vagrancy law strictly. You can’t make a man go to the workhouse, but if he’s arrested for vagrancy, sending him to the workhouse looks like mercy compared with giving the maximum criminal sentence.”

This didn’t seem right. “I wonder that no one challenges the legality of it,” I said.

He shrugged. “Poor people have little money for attorneys. Sooner or later, though…” He smiled. “Joe Lestrade is a good man, and a shrewd one.”

I knew this was true. “What about Moran? How does he operate if the police aren’t on his side?”

“He has his own force.” Simon smiled grimly. “His gang. Even the coppers can’t do anything about them. One way or another, he gets what he wants.”

“That’s how Watson was convicted,” I said quietly. “It doesn’t matter if there are no witnesses. He just hires his own. I wonder that Watson didn’t let it go to court, though. It can’t have looked good for Moran, having to come up with bogus witnesses.”

Simon nodded. “I asked him that. He said he could never do that to you, that he couldn’t stand to hear them making up lies about you any more than they already had. He said he’d rather go to prison for ten years than let them do that.”

Watson came on Sunday, as Simon had promised, and spent the day doctoring the neighbourhood. I was happy just to see him, to sit and talk with him while he put plasters on wounds and pulled rotten teeth. The good it seemed to do him was as great as the good he did for his patients.

Simon’s mother begged him to stay for a late supper with the family, and he readily accepted. He was quiet over dinner, casting small smiles in my direction, but saying little. It was clear that the neighbourhood folk adored my doctor. Dinner was interrupted several times by people asking for him.

“Let the doctor have his dinner,” Simon told yet another patient at the door. And each time Watson would rise from the table and speak with them, do a bit more doctoring, reassuring them that he’d be back to check them in a week, or that he’d send medicine with Simon or one of the other boys.

Watson stayed a bit longer, but finally took his leave as it began to grow dark. Together we walked to the corner, talking little, but glad in each other’s company. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth, had my body been strong enough, but for now I contented myself with following him to the train station.

“Have you seen your daughter?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Mary thought it wasn’t a good idea. Rosie’s just a child, and would not understand.”

“She misses you, though. It’s wrong for Mary to keep her from you.”

“I am in no position to argue with her,” he replied bitterly. “My hands are not clean. I married her under false pretences.”

“You regret it.”

“How can I? My marriage gave me my precious Rose. And it kept us safe for a long time.” He sighed. “Mycroft arranged financial support for them. Apparently, he’d been investing some of your income, growing a substantial nest egg.”

I nodded. “Thomas Quick. He’s good at that sort of thing.”

“I’m sorry about Mycroft,” he said. “He was very kind to me in my troubles. I’m afraid he neglected his own safety in considering mine.”

“He knew the risks,” I replied. “He considered you his brother, for whom he would do anything.”

“It just hurts me,” he said. “It grieves me that I can never thank him properly.”

“I know. It was a hard blow when I learned of it. He’s always been there for me. I’d avoided trying to contact him, thinking it would be dangerous. Now I wish I’d had a chance to say goodbye.”

I’d thought my limp was mostly gone, but his doctor’s eye spied it. “You were wounded. How?”

“After Moriarty fell, I managed to climb out of the chasm. He had people with him, of course, and they began shooting as soon as I gained a foothold. I had to run. A bullet caught me in the leg, fortunately missing the femoral artery. It’s healed, but still troubles me in cold weather.”

He looked alarmed. “Even so, you might have bled out. You must have received medical care in time.”

“I did.” His look asked a question, but that story would keep for another day. “I’ll get a job soon,” I said. “We can find some rooms together.”

“Holmes,” he said, looking down at his feet. “This cannot be… as it once was.”

“I’m not afraid,” I said. “I don’t intend to give you up. I understand caution in public, but there are limits to how long I can keep my hands off you, John. We must have our own rooms or I will go mad.”

He flushed and looked around. The street was not crowded, but physical contact could not happen here. “Consider yourself kissed,” he said softly. “I’m not giving you up either.”

“Of course you’re not,” I replied, sticking my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t accidentally hug him. “Things will look up soon. Sunday next is Christmas. You’ll be here, won’t you?”

He nodded. “Saturday and Sunday.” There was a promise embedded in that statement.

“I’ll talk to Simon. I’m sure he can put us up for one night.”

Watson frowned. “I don’t want to embarrass him or his family. We must be discreet.”

I agreed, and we parted with a lingering, but unsatisfactory handshake.

I made it as far as Wednesday evening before I walked all the way to Barts. The weather was soggy, but not particularly cold. Watson would call it a perfect climate for influenza, I thought, and would scold me for being out in it. I would give that as the reason for my visit, that I’d been advised to see my doctor.

By the time I got there, I was a bit out of breath, and had to pause until I regained my composure. I walked around the outside of the building, looking for a way in that didn’t require me to speak to a night doorman. Finding the doors all locked, I finally paid a boy a few pennies to distract the man watching the front door.

Once inside, I found a stairway down to the basement. I had figured out where the caretaker’s apartment was, and hoped to surprise Watson. He would be done with his shift by now, probably taking his meagre evening meal alone. I did not need to ask him how he lived now; it was evident in the way his clothing hung on him, the sallowness of his skin, and the downward cast of his eyes. Within an hour, I hoped, I would put some rose back into his cheeks. And other places.

I knocked softly and heard him stir within, moving slowly. I imagined him setting down his pipe, pushing away from the table where he’d spread out the evening paper to read while he ate. Weary, he might think someone was coming to drag him back to work. Maybe a leaky pipe or a stuck door. Something that could not wait until morning. 

The door opened slowly. His face wary, then surprised, then a flash of unrepressed joy, followed by sudden caution.

“Holmes.” Casting a glance down the corridor, he drew me into the room.

If I’d had any doubt about his feelings, it fled. As he pulled me into an embrace, I heard him latch the door. We were alone, finally, and I would be entirely his.

I had never thought of kisses much before I met John Watson. After we became lovers, I was amazed at how many different kinds of kisses there were, and John seemed an expert at all of them. He would plant tender kisses on my brow over breakfast, leaning over me and sliding my teacup within reach. When we’d just come in from a walk and hung our coats by the door, he would stand on tip-toes and pull my face towards his, and my cold lips would part to let his warm, clever tongue inside. At odd times of the day, he would peck my cheek, or kiss me behind the ear. When we knew we would be undisturbed for a good while, he might even confine my wrists in his hands and press me against the wall, plundering my mouth. So many kinds of kisses, each one a new discovery for me.

The kiss we shared once his door was closed was regretful, tentative, but filled with longing. The intensity grew and our bodies drew together, claiming one another. I had not been aroused in months, and then only in my dreams. This was so real and raw that it was almost painful.

It was a healing pain, though. After a long kiss, we tucked our faces into each other’s shoulders and breathed heavily, in and out, like men finding our feet at last on dry land. I raised my face and reached for his, cupping it in my hands. Neither of us spoke. We just gazed at one another, memorising the new lines and angles.

Once I thought I could live without love. For some years now, I’d tried to make myself believe that again, out of necessity. My body hadn’t forgotten; everything I’d repressed during my exile came flooding back. It was so different from that first night when we’d discovered one another at the Byzantium, each of us wanting what we thought we could not have. I will never forget that evening, how we lay naked in my bed, shyly using our Christian names for the first time, learning one another’s bodies. Tonight we were finding one another, rediscovering what neither of us had ever thought to have again.

I led him towards the bed. He followed, allowing me to unbutton his shirt and pull it off, then did the same for me, his hands trembling as they explored my chest and belly. I understood that he was looking for evidence of my reality, some sign that would explain how I’d survived.

Shaking, he unfastened my trousers and undid my undergarments. His fingers found my scar, the wound that still made me limp a bit. Eyes closed, he felt my cock and bollocks, his fingers remembering pleasure given and taken. Impatient for his body, I finished undressing him and pulled him into the bed beside me. He turned off the gas lamp, leaving only the light of the small hearth glowing.

We lay in the semi-darkness for some minutes, simply breathing. I thought of the many nights we’d lain like this, our bodies so familiar to one another’s hands. Taking my time, I explored his body— he was so thin now, but still muscular. His eyes were dark, reflecting the orange of the fire, studying me, learning me again. I could still feel him trembling slightly, not in fear now, but in anticipation.

This was no time for haste, I decided. True, it had been almost eight years since we had touched one another, but I felt only a pleasant urgency. I wasn’t sure what he would want now, this first time (of many more, I hoped), but I would wait and watch and listen. Almost shyly, he touched my prick, causing me to jerk suddenly. That made him huff a small laugh and grin at me. I took him in hand then and he stretched luxuriously against me, his body taut with pleasure. Gently I drew back his foreskin, using the drops already leaking from his cock to stroke his glans. He murmured my name, his voice going through me like an arrow.

I wanted to taste hm, but I could not stop watching his face. His eyes rolled closed again as I stroked him, and he gripped me more firmly. I felt his breathing quicken, and he groaned into my chest. His hips bucked against me and I dared to slip my finger between his buttocks.

This produced an anxious, muffled cry, and I pulled back. Grabbing my hand, he guided me back to his opening and I began to finger him. He panted, and I slid down his body, keeping one hand on his buttocks and using the other to take him into my mouth.

The long sigh he gave told me that he had been wanting this as long as I had. We were _us_ again, no longer figments of each other’s imaginations, but flesh and blood and bones and sweat. The smell of his arousal filled my nose and I could not wait any longer.

Just as he tensed and his body began to shudder in his release, I came as well. Gradually, we stilled and held one another, saying nothing.

I felt the texture of his scar, traced the outline of the wound that had brought us together. “We will not be parted again.”

I felt him shaking in my arms.

“John? All right?”

He sobbed. “How? How can I keep you? To keep you is to ruin us both, and to let you go is another death. I don’t know what to do. I cannot lose you, Sherlock, and I cannot keep you.”

“We will be careful, my love,” I said gently. “No one knows I’m in London. I can remain incognito as long as necessary. We _must_ be together; we have earned it. No one will take that from us. Oh, John, we swore to one another, swore that we would be true, that together we would face whatever happens.”

“Eight years,” he whispered into my shoulder.

“Those years have been but a moment,” I replied. “They did not part us; nothing can. I failed you once, John, but I won’t a second time. I will do what I set out to do eight years ago. I will see Moran fall, as Moriarty did—”

“No,” he wept. “I cannot lose you again.”

I ran my hand over his cropped hair. “All right, John. Then we will leave England for a while. We can find refuge in France— I have family there who may take us in. Or… or… we can go to America, perhaps...”

My voice trailed off. He had fallen silent once more. I stroked his back, trying to divine his thoughts.

“My dear, I will do what you want,” I said to his silence. “I have made a great many mistakes, and the greatest one was not trusting you completely. I sent you away at the falls because I was protecting you, but we might have faced Moriarty together. That will not happen again. Whatever you desire, I will do.”

He raised his head and looked into my face. In the dim light, his eyes were dark and so lovely, I felt tears come to mine.

“I have often thought about what makes a man great,” he said softly. “I have been privileged to know at least one man who deserves that descriptor. Though I myself am not such a man, I understand that sometimes I must do things that are beyond my innate capabilities. I may not be able to rise to what will be required, but I see clearly that it must be done. Sometimes being at hand is more important than being qualified for the job.” He was silent, but I felt him thinking. “I am certain that I cannot stand to lose you again, Holmes. Nevertheless, there is something we must do. You, being a great man, understand what that is.”

“I am _not_ a great man,” I replied. “I am a vain and foolish man.” Often I had been thanked, and even honoured for my work. Once I even turned down a knighthood. Now, I was embarrassed to think how easily I had accepted those thanks and honours— with appropriate humility, of course, but not completely understanding how great a part chance had played in my successes, how one failure could undo even great success. I had made the mistake of underestimating the greatest criminal of the age, and lost nearly everything in the ruin that followed. “My pride brought this on us, John, and for that I am deeply sorry. I should have realised what Moriarty was capable of.”

“Great men do occasionally fail,” he said. “It does not diminish who you are.”

“I let you down,” he said. “I meant to take apart Moriarty’s machine, and instead I got caught in the gears, dragging you and Mycroft and Lestrade—”

“We too will die one day, my love.” He spoke calmly, but with the deadly gravity of a soldier. “We don’t get to choose when, but we may choose how, if we are brave enough. I don’t want to hide. It may be futile, but I feel we must fight.”

I buried my face in his neck. “You are right, of course. We will fight together.”

He kissed me tenderly. “And we won’t be alone this time. There are people here who will help us. People see the injustice and will rally to us.”

He fetched a flannel and cleaned us off. Then we lay comfortably in the dark, talking softly, sometimes shaking in sobs, sometimes in laughter. I told him of my travels, of Dr Caspari and his daughter, the monastery in Milan, and the people I met in the mills. It is an odd thing how memories can condense time; as I remembered those years of labour, they seemed just a few days.

“You must have been bored,” he said, chuckling. “It’s hard for me to imagine you labouring in the vineyards. Did you enjoy living with the monks?”

“I think I could have adapted well to that life.”

“Why did you leave?”

I cupped my hands around his face and kissed him. “Because of you, my love. I knew that I could not stay in Limbo forever, but must continue my journey and climb my way up through Purgatory if I was going to see you again.”

“I thought that might be why you sent me that book.”

“You were in Purgatory as well. Oh, John— if I had ever thought they would do that to you, I would have come home at once.”

“No,” he said. “You were right to stay away. They would not have been as kind to you as they were to me. Putting me in prison was a kindness compared to what they would have done to you.” He shivered. “What they still could do to you if they find out you’ve returned.”

“They are over-confident, bloated with their success,” I returned. “But I wondered, when I heard about your plea— why did you not fight them? The charges they brought were spurious, entirely made up! Why didn’t you deny them?”

“Because it would have ended the same, and they would have exposed you to even more abuse. I could not deny that we’d been lovers, and would not. If I had, they would have invented even more falsehoods, hired more fake witnesses to swear we’d been doing unspeakable things. I admitted only what was true, that we’d been lovers.”

I knew that he was not wrong; I would have done the same. “I only wish I’d been here. I read of it in the newspapers when you were sentenced. I can’t even describe how I felt, knowing that you were going to prison.”

He smiled and settled his head on my chest. “I’m glad we have this, at last.”

I kissed the top of his head. “I can’t pretend everything will be as it was. But we’ll find a way to be together, always.”

We heard the bells of the nearby churches begin to toll the hour. _One… two… three…_

“Two more hours and I must be up and about my duties,” he said.

“That gives us time,” I replied. “ _Duty may come before pleasure, but only in the dictionary._ ”

After all our pleasures, our sleep that night was short. But to feel him finally drift off, his head on my shoulder, his breathing even and steady, his arms around me— many a night, as I made a bed for myself in a barn somewhere in the French countryside, or tried to find enough blankets to make a comfortable bed in a factory or mill, I used to imagine just this: my Watson safe in my arms, I in his, our bodies pressed together in our own bed. Our separate journeys ended, we would not be parted again.


End file.
